Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Among OpenTable's restaurant lineup for its Appetite Stimulus Plan, Grace is one of the few ones I was excited about and last night I managed to try it out with Mattatouille and his girlfriend.

Besides the 2 choices for each of the three courses, Grace also offered other courses for $6-8 supplemental charge, but we all stuck with the $35 three-course choices.

The first choice for the appetizer was the Fall Squash Soup with duck confit and pistachios.A delicious and rich soup! The duck confit went very well with the sweetness of the squash soup itself and the pistachios provide a nice crunchy texture along with the smoothness of the soup. Everyone on the table loved it.

The other appetizer choice was House Cured Salmon with roasted beets, heirloom tomatoes, and horseradish creme fraiche.I thought the presentation was gorgeous - I felt bad destroying it but you gotta do what you gotta do. This again was a hit - the salmon was delicious, and the sweet beets and tomatoes combination worked very well.

Instead of the sand dabs that the website mentioned, the first entree choice was actually Petrole Sole. The preparation and accompaniments are still the same with potato gnocchi, hazelnuts, haricots verts, and sage brown butter.I only had a bit of this and thought it was solid. The fish wasn't particularly flavorful but Mattatouille seemed to love the brown butter. I loved the potato gnocchi which were very tender.

I had the oven roasted Leg of Colorado Lamb with Byaldi confit and olive infused lamb jus.The Byaldi confit reminded me of the dish from the movie Ratatouille :) (doesn't it? doesn't it?) (oops, not Rattatouille ... It's all Mattatouille's fault)The confit may be our favorite part of the dish. The lamb was flavorful but somewhat on the tougher side. Still good, just harder to eat - if only they had given us steak knives.

For dessert the choices were the Apple Upside Down Bread Pudding with buttermilk ice cream, apple cider syrup, cranberries, and brown sugar walnutsA great dessert. The cranberries didn't add anything for me and I think it even distracted from the rest of the dish, but after putting that aside, I liked everything else.

The other dessert choice was Boca Negra Cake Affogato, which is a dark chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, brandied orange slice, then soaked in espresso.Very rich! The cake itself was amazingly dense. Delicious but take small bites, it really gets to you! You'll need some hot tea or black coffee to cut it later.

The other thing I love about this restaurant is the small touches they put into their wares. The container for the honey that comes with their tea is a great example:What a cute bee-shaped honey container! I want to take it home ...

Just like its DineLA menu, Grace's Open Table Appetite Stimulus was a hit for me. I'm glad they continue to participate in these prix-fixe weeks and continue to deliver a solid, worthwhile menu that people can really appreciate (unlike some other restaurants we talked about last night *cough*).

Monday, April 28, 2008

People can argue with me, but I think Grace offers the best burger+shake meal in LA. Sure, the price isn't exactly what you would normally spend for burger and shake, but ...

(If you're looking for a review of the other food they have at Grace, go to my dineLA review here)

I ordered the Grace burger with the truffle cheese. The waitress assured us that (although you can't see them), the cheese was made from authentic Italian white truffles, not just truffle essence ...A huge patty of beef, cooked medium with melted truffle cheese in between fleur-de-sel buns, with fresh lettuce and tomatoes. And delicious fries, too. Yum. I don't know, I think Grace burger is my favorite, although I can respect people saying otherwise, e.g. if they want Kobe beef, or more unique sauces/preparation, or just more burger-like prices :PThis is definitely not my go-to place for a regular daily cravings for burger. Special occasion burger cravings only!

Last time I had the blueberry malt shake which was absolutely, absolutely amazing. This time they didn't have it ... so I opted for the Mexican Chocolate shake. This was also really, really good! Grace might not have the best burger around, but I would definitely argue that Grace has the best milkshake.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The dineLA experience at Grace does not disappoint. Made reservation for 3 at 7:15 but only 2 of us could make it. They gave us no fuss, seated us immediately. The hostess took my coat for me.They served us complementary sparkling water. They had additional options available for extra $10 charge such as hamachi for appetizer and wild boar for the entree.

I ordered one Grace Gimlet, which was okay. It got better at the bottom of the glass, not too sure if it's because it wasn't well mixed or just because I was more intoxicated towards the bottom.

I got the spinach and arugula salad bcs I needed some greens. The salad was simple, yet very well done. Goat cheese was yummy.The other person got the Shrimp Cavatelli, which was very yummy, but the portion was much smaller than the salad.I didn't dig the peas too much but everything else in the dish was excellent.

I opted to pay $10 extra to get the wild boar with spaetzle and baby bok choy. The waiter informed us it was recommended medium rare which was just perfect for me anyway.An amazing dish. Meat was very tender and flavorful, the sauce was excellent and so was the spaetzle. The fresh mint leaves just added a great "kick" to it.

The other person ordered the king salmon. The first bite prompted him to say "wow", which does not often happen.The salmon was medium rare and was just cooked to perfection. Very tender, not dry. One of the best salmon we've ever had. The quinoa and the artichokes go perfectly well with the salmon - the artichokes especially for me. Too bad I was stuffed.

The desserts, of course, was doughnuts (no other choice).Doughnuts were good, although I didn't think it was really that special. The hot chocolate that came with it was really yummy. Had a bit of spice to it which was excellent. Unfortunately though it came with too much cream and I just mixed it all in, which I regretted later on.

All in all, it was an excellent meal and well worth $34 (well, plus $10 for the boar). The entree portions were regular size, they definitely did not skimp just because of the prix-fixe deal.